“Cut it out, Max.” I pushed him off me. “We need to talk.”
Then I heard the door slam shut, the room suddenly falling pitch-black. The lock clicked. Something uncanny wobbled through the air and my breath hitched—Max and I weren’t alone.
“We need to talk, Max, you’re in big trouble.” A male voice mocked my girlie twang, followed by the sound of collective snickering.
“Chase, shut your trap,” I heard Max’s voice, and as my eyes adjusted to the darkness, I saw him looking at me, his pupils unfocused, inches away from my face. “Show some respect for this beautiful girl. Look what she can do.”
“Show us already, LaPointe,” called a third male voice that I recognized—Max’s friend Wiley’s.
“Okay, okay. Hang on.” Max pinned his hands to my shoulders and leaned down to kiss me, pressing me into the bed.
“What the fuck, Max?” I whispered. “Stop it.”
He smiled, releasing his grip and standing. “Sorry about that, Starling. My friends are drunk losers. You can go now.” He flipped the switch on the wall, and the room was bathed in light.
I stood, smoothing my beach cover-up. I glared at Max as I headed for the door, stopping in my tracks as the familiar, immobilizing sensation seized me.
I knew then, and the fear was like a worm slinking through my insides. I knew why all three of them were staring at me. I knew why Max had called me into the room.
“Go on,” Chase prompted, waving me toward the door. “You can go now.”
“Max,” I said slowly. I tried to meet his gaze, but he was staring at Chase.
“C’mon, Starling, you heard Chase,” Max said. “You can leave now.”
I stood, frozen.
“Skye.” Max pushed me back onto the bed again. This time I struggled against him, but he held me down. He slid one of his hands underneath my cover-up, jamming his fingers around my bathing suit and inside me.
“Max!” I screamed, kicking him off. Chase and Wiley sneered behind him.
“Whoa, Starling, I said you could go.” Max stood again, stepping to the side to let me by. I was only a few feet from the door. I stepped closer, placing my hand on the knob. The current of my blood quickened, anxiety seizing me, tears pricking the corners of my eyes. Turning the knob was not possible. We all knew I was trapped.
“Fine, you psycho,” I croaked, unable to look at Max. “If this is what you want, you’re sick.”
I lifted my fist in front of the door and began to knock. I felt three pairs of eyes glued to me. I heard the snickering, but I forced myself to keep going. I thought of my mother. Lucky eight. The breath. One two three four five six seven eight; eight seven six five four—
An arm grabbed my middle so forcefully I cried out.
“Shhhh,” Chase whispered, throwing me down on the bed. When I continued to scream, Wiley clamped his hand over my mouth.
“LaPointe says that if your knocking thing gets interrupted, you have to start all over again,” Chase continued. “Is that right?” He smiled vindictively, tracing his fingertips up the length of my thigh toward my bathing suit. My scream muffled into Wiley’s hand as Chase pressed his fingers inside me, just as Max had done moments before.
“Okay, okay, all done.” Chase stood. “Now you can go.”
Wiley removed his hand from my mouth. I was trembling, too afraid to make a sound.
“You can go now,” Chase repeated, nodding toward the door.
“What do you want from me?” I whispered, my eyes brimming with fresh tears.
Max took a long pull of whiskey, then handed the bottle to Wiley. “We just want you to go, Starling. It’s time for you to leave.” Max’s eyes looked plastic.
When I first got diagnosed with OCD, my father used to worry that if I ever got stuck in a fire, my compulsion would prevent me from escaping. I’d told him not to be concerned, that self-preservation would most certainly override my OCD in a life-or-death scenario. But in that moment, in that shitty share-house bedroom with Max and his cohorts, I knew my father had been right to worry. Here I was getting sexually assaulted, powerless against my own deluded mind. Max and his friends could rape me—even kill me—and I’d remain helpless.
The boys watched me do my knocks again; this time Wiley grabbed me before I could finish counting down from eight. They pinned me against the bed, Chase covering my mouth with one hand as Wiley stuck his fingers inside me. Out of the corner of my eye I saw Max take another swig of whiskey, watching us.
Finally they were off me, and Max handed Chase the bottle, which was nearly empty.
“We’re sorry, Starling, we really are,” Max slurred. “I told them what a special girl you were, and they didn’t believe me. I told them you had the tightest pussy in the world, and they didn’t believe that, either. I had to let them see for themselves.” Max shrugged and stumbled out of the room, Chase and Wiley cackling in his wake.
I can count on one hand the number of people who know what happened that evening. I’d told Andie, sobbing uncontrollably in an Uber on the way back to the city later that night. I told Dr. Salam when I started seeing her several months later. Lexy, Isabel, and Kendall know abbreviated versions of what happened, but I never told them the full story. I was simply too humiliated.
Afterward, Andie couldn’t let it go. I don’t blame her, I suppose, as she’d seen my pain firsthand, the way the trauma consumed me in the weeks and months that followed. Andie was the one who called NYU and reported the incident that fall. The administration investigated, and two other girls from Stern came forward with official complaints of Max’s sexual aggression. He was expelled from Stern in January, four months before he was slated to graduate. The details were never made public, but Max knew what Andie and I had done. I knew he despised me, possibly as much as I despised him.
Five years later, when I hadn’t spoken about the incident to anyone in longer than I could remember, I told Burke. The thing that I shared with no one else, I shared with him. Something soft and safe was in his eyes, something that told me he’d take my darkest secret and bear some of its weight. And he did. And after that, my load was a little lighter.
And my load is still lighter, I think to myself as the taxi pulls to a stop on West Eleventh. I pay the cabbie and head up to my apartment.
I have two missed calls from Andie and one from Lexy, so I text our group chat and apologize for Irish-exiting. I tell them I just needed to go home.
I nestle underneath my covers still thinking about Burke, about the words I love you on the Post-it note I can’t shake from my mind. I think about how even though Burke and I are no more, even though what we had was nothing, my load is still lighter because of him. And that is something.
My phone vibrates on the bedside table. A new email from [email protected]. A cold shiver runs through me.
A word to the wise, Starling—don’t forget what I said about consequences.
For the first time since he contacted me last spring, I let myself think long and hard about what Max LaPointe might actually want from me.
Chapter Thirty-Six
Burke
OCTOBER 2019—TWO DAYS WITHOUT SKYE
I am on the floor of our home office, the scratchy fibers of the wall-to-wall carpet digging into my ankles. A dull pain numbs my knees, but I can’t get up. I can’t stop reading the old entries of my Moleskine, barely able to wrap my mind around how much has changed in just a little over a year.